"I tell you already, I did not make mess. Why are you not believing me?" The large man yelled to his smaller companion.
"Just look," the smaller man yelled back. "Who else here eats this much food at once, or has such weird tastes?" Honestly! Who puts bananas in tuna fish sandwiches?
"Sabertooth." Said the third and final member of the trio, a young man standing somewhere between the heights of the other two in a trench coat.
"Besides him."
*Alright, that's enough.* Ranma thought as he quietly crept out of the kitchen. All things considered, he hoped word of this never got out, it was just too embarrassing. And, without so much as a parting glance he left the kitchen to find the fastest way out of that hell hole, and ran head first into Bucket Head, himself. "Oh, shit!"
*Why did I even bother with the Hellfire Club?* Magneto admonished himself. He knew Mastermind owed him, yet he went to those wet-nosed upstarts anyway. He cringed to think what their assistance would cost him, especially in pride and dignity. Both were immeasurably valuable commodities when you were a megalomaniac with plans of world conquest.
For instance, he was currently still in a significant amount of pain from both the large gash carved in his chest by that young whelp’s near miss, and his shoulder which was still swollen and sore from when it had been dislocated when the same person threw him to the ground. But, despite the pain he walked straight and tall, with dignity, not giving the slightest hint of his severe discomfort. Was he not so concerned with appearances he would have stayed in bed for the day, and subsequently every day for the rest of the week.
And, keeping up appearances means making appearances, which was why he was currently hunting for one or more of his acolytes to rant/preach to about mutant supremacy and how much better the world would be once he was in charge. Just then, he heard a commotion coming from the mess hall, and decided to investigate. Once he got a little closer it was obvious the commotion was an argument between his acolytes or the currently present ones anyway. Absently he wondered if he should rant/preach about proper team work and moral instead.
However, before he could decide he ran face first into nothing (which was a lot harder than he thought nothing could be). He held his sore face and watched as the air in front of him shimmered and materialized into the pigtailed boy he had fought the day before. They both stared at each other for several long moments, shock and disbelief written clearly on their faces but saying nothing until...
"YOU-" That's all Magneto got to say as Ranma recovered from his surprise a fraction of a second before the mutant and decided to act instead of speak. The boy quickly shot forward and buried his right fist into the man's stomach, forcing the wind from him. Then he slammed the same fist into the back of the man's head when he bent over, delivering him into unconsciousness.
The acolytes, who had heard their leader's shout over their own arguing rushed into the corridor, where they found their leader unmoving on the floor and an unknown Asian boy with a pigtail standing over him. Some reacted faster than others. The first was the tall muscular dude with the Russian accent who rushed towards the pigtailed boy with little more than a mean grunt.
Ranma dodged the guy's first punch but stupidly placed himself with his back to the wall. When the tall young man threw his next punch Ranma barely ducked under it and heard the cement wall behind him shatter. *This guy's tough, maybe tougher than Ryoga. I have to finish this quick,* he thought to himself as he shot a hard trio of amaguriken speed punches to his opponent's solar plexus.
)}K-K-KLANG{(
The pigtailed boy looked up in surprise and noticed that his opponent now had metal skin. How 'bout that. Cradling his bruised hand when he should have been dodging, the young martial artist was unprepared for the hard gut punch that sent him through the hole in the wall behind him.
Colossus stepped away from the hole leading to the unlit room beyond, looking rather pleased with himself.
"Is he finished?" Pyro asked as he fished his lighter out of his pants pocket.
"If he no' then he will be soon, no?" Gambit answered almost casually as he tossed a handful of glowing poker cards into the opening.
Pyro smiled as the cards exploded in the other room. "My thoughts exactly." He said as he made a show of igniting his lighter and pulling the flame away with his free hand. Then, he rared back and threw his hand forward, a long continuous stream of fire erupting from his hand where a fireball used to be. "Burn, baby, burn!" He shouted with glee.
"HIRYU SHOTEN HA" Was what answered him.
The acolytes were surprised when the stream of fire coming from Pyro started expanding and then diffused into a small horizontal tornado. They watched dumbly as the gale-force winds slammed into Pyro and knocked him back into the kitchen, and shortly after into unconsciousness. Which is why they missed seeing Ranma jump back through the opening in the wall and clap his cupped hands over Colossus' ears.
Colossus lunged toward him again with a punch but suddenly found himself without a sense of balance and ended up stumbling past his adversary and through the same hole in the wall he had made. Gambit through a trio of charged cards towards the pigtailed martial artist who just barely dodged them by a hair's breadth.
Ranma jerked away as he saw something bright flying towards him out of the corner of his eye. His eyes narrowed as he saw a trio of glowing cards fly past him and explode as they hit the wall a few feet away. He rushed towards his new opponent, hoping he wouldn't risk using those things at close range, and was almost surprised when he pulled out an extendable Bo staff. Ranma ducked under a high swing aimed for his head and side-stepped a body shot. He sent out a kick to Gambit's stomach only to have it miss when his opponent stepped back from it. He ducked under another high swing but was able to sweep the Cajun's leading foot out from under him, but Gambit expertly flipped over Ranma, using his staff as a support. Ranma raised an arm on instinct just in time to block a shot to his head from behind. He then grabbed the staff and twisted it out of Gambit's hand, twirled it in a low arc and smashed it into his groin. Gambit's oddly colored eyes snapped open and he tried to gasp for air as he was flipped over onto his head and lost consciousness.
Ranma tossed the bo staff onto the floor with a dull clang, and looked tiredly over his downed opponents before resuming his search for the exit. He only got took two steps before Colossus burst through the wall again and charged right for him. *Dammit I forgot about him!*
Ranma quickly dodged every punch thrown at him, zigzagging left and right as the punches came faster and faster. Colossus had dropped all pretense of defense and was going for an all out attack, not that it really mattered. He wasn't nearly fast enough to touch Ranma, and his metal skin rendered the martial artist's punches ineffective. So the two danced around each other in a one sided game of tag but with Ranma at a severe disadvantage being tired and wounded from previous fights.
Their dance continued until Ranma missed his footing and tripped one of his downed opponents. Magneto moaned loudly when Ranma tripped over him, signaling his eventual return to consciousness. Ranma heard him and started formulating what would be a risky plan. But any plan was better than none.
Ranma Quickly got up and started dodging. Left. Right. Left, again. He positioned himself so that Colossus was between him and Magneto, then, when Colossus over extended a punch, he dove under the extended arm and rolled to a stop right beside the still insensate master of magnetism. He waited for the large metal man to turn toward him and tried to punch him yet again. He waited until he was fully dedicated to the punch, until his fist was too close to stop it in time. When it was he grabbed Magneto and pulled the mutant in front of him so that he took the whole of Colossus' punch and was knocked through an adjacent wall.
Colossus stopped when he noticed he had hit someone who was not the pigtailed intruder. He looked from the pigtailed boy, to the new hole in the wall, and back again.
Ranma pointed towards the new hole. "Your boss." He said simply, and waited for the information to register on the large brute's face. Slowly his face contorted into a look between anger and rage and he lashed out with a sloppy hook. Ranma dodged the punch and clapped his cupped hands over Colossus' ears again. When Colossus tried to punch him again he lost his balance and Ranma grabbed his extended arm and tossed him over his shoulder towards the twice-downed Magneto. Then employed the Saotome final technique.
"I'd say it's been fun but it hasn't. Sayonara, suckers!" He said as he ran away from his enemies as fast as he could.
"DAMN YOU!" Colossus yelled as he ran after the fleeing martial artist. But, the metal plated brute was nowhere near fast enough to keep up with Ranma, even on one of his bad days. And, today was definitely a bad day.
*Dammit, I swear I must've been all over this place, and I still haven't found one stinkin' door.* Ranma thought to himself angrily. He knew that the longer he stayed her the more chance there was that Metal-head would find him or that Bucket-head would wake up. *Oh, well at least I know of one way out.* He thought as he ran back to his cell.
When he got back to his cell he immediately went and checked the hole in the wall. He whistled to himself as he looked down the cliff face and estimated the drop to be at least seventy meters. The good thing was that the water at the bottom looked pretty deep so as long as he cleared a twelve meter jump he should be fine. And, he could clear twelve meter jumps in his sleep.
"YOU!!" Ranma looked down to see the large scruffy man he had thrown off the cliff earlier. He was covered in deep cuts and bruises, but had still managed to climb all the way up to the opening again.
"Hey, it's you! I gotta say I'm impressed." He commented a little bit too cheerfully.
"I don’t give a @#$% whether you're @#$%ing impressed, you little @#$%. I'm gonna @#$%ing @#$% your @#$% @#$% until you can't @#%% no more!"
"Tsk, Tsk, language!" Ranma admonished with a boot to the face. He watched as the scruffy man bounced down the cliff face yet again. It was mean, he knew that, but he was feeling spiteful at the moment.
With that finished, he took a couple steps back and made a running jump off the cliff, and dived into the water below.
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(Posted Fri, 27 Jun 2003 23:55)
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らんま1/2 © Rumiko Takahashi
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